A great tasting pizza for every occasion. This is fairly simple to make except for the dough, but places like Trader Joe’s now sell pizza dough which should make this super easy. We made this pizza as part of a giant birthday party involving 8 other pizzas which you can find elsewhere on amazing sandwiches.
As our kitchen renovation draws nearer to its conclusion, and after having lived for weeks now with a dusty house, no kitchen, a fridge in the garage, and the top of our washing machine as our kitchen counter, we remember this sandwich from our ‘old kitchen’ days. This is made from a great chicken Wendie made which we turned into ‘chicken salad #2‘ and added to a fresh slice of roasted garlic bread with capers and Parmesan on top. We also torched the Parmesan a little to give it a golden look, and to achieve the oddly comforting feeling of warmth near the top of the sandwich. Saturday we are getting married, so the frequency of posts have significantly eased of as our backyard weddings draws nearer. We will post lots of sandwiches after the wedding 🙂
Call me crazy, but I just love the dark brown parts of liver pâté. I realize that may not be the preference of most other sane people, but what can I do against such deliciousness. So these pictures may not do full justice to the wonderful slice of Maria’s liver pâté, but I can assure you that once you bite into this little black diamond, your buds will thank you.
The sautéed side of zucchini with garlic and lemon matches perfectly the sautéed leeks and roasted walnuts.
This pizza makes for an excellent dinner if you are having a few friends over to share a nice bottle of Barolo. The black forest ham is great on sandwiches, and excellent on pizza. It’s not overly salty and thus goes really well with the veggies. As always, enjoy making pizza, have some fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment a little. Pizzas are the Chef’s playground, they are very hard to mess up, and everyone always enjoys fresh-baked bread. Just buy decent ingredients, and kick loose. We made this pizza on the spur of the moment, with ingredients we mostly ‘found’ in the kitchen. Adding Peperino seeds was purely because we had some. Black forest ham? We had some. Green bell pepper? Yup, we had some. That’s how we make pizzas, and the best ones go on the blog for you guys. So go crazy tonight. Make your own pizza, or try this one.
Pesto is a wonderful spread or topping for sandwiches and appetizer, in addition to its obvious uses in pasta. It’s very easy to make yourself, and when our sweet basil plant starts to grow out of hand we always have a use for the basil. If you live near a well stocked grocery store (We have Trader Joe’s here in California), look for a bag of basil and try this yourself if you don’t have the plants.
Start by placing the garlic cloves in a food processor. Pulse a few times until the pieces are as small as they can get. Add the basil and pine nuts, and pulse again. Add the olive oil slowly while running the food processor, and finally add the cheese.
Tip: The Simply Recipies blog has excellent advice for freezing fresh pesto, plus a slightly different version. In general don’t sweat the exact measurements, but try and taste it and adjust. The quality of the basil can vary over the course of the year, or from region to region, so you may need to add more or less cheese and olive oil.
Recently we discovered the joy of smoked salmon on pizzas, and decided to try another one. This is our second pizza from Wendie’s surprise birthday party (of nine total), and also a very popular one amongst our friends. It’s simple in its ingredients, with very subtle tastes. The Sautéed mushroom worked great on the pizza (We used it a few times that night), and on this the avocado brings a coolness to the hot pizza that almost melts with the salmon.
This burger looks quite simple, but the onions make it very moist and delicious while the roasted garlic gives it a great taste. This is definitely one of our favorite burgers so far. In the next few weeks our kitchen is being renovated, and we’re not sure how we can keep up our frantic sandwich making pace. We will have access to an outdoor BBQ with a side stove, and… restaurants. Idea for BBQ sandwiches/burgers that can be easily prepared with no kitchen would be highly appreciated 🙂
Continue reading Burger with Roasted Garlic Mayo and Caramelized Onions
Salad dressing, you say, how does that have anything to do with sandwiches? Well, one of our culinary experiments resulted in a delicious ham sandwich using this dressing as a spread. Anders loves tarragon. I mean, he really loves it. In our love of gardening, we’ve made many attempts at growing this delightful herb but to no avail. As I write this, there is a plant languishing on our patio in complete defiance of all the love, attention and desperate hope that has been directed at. But I digress. Lucky for us, we live close to a neighborhood grocery that sells fresh tarragon when in season, and when not, they sell huge bags of the dried stuff. And when life gives you tarragon, why not make a tarragon salad dressing?
So here’s the recipe:
In a small bowl, combine vinegar, mustard, garlic and tarragon. Mix well and taste. Depending on how well aged your balsamic vinegar is, you might not need the honey. The one we use is on the lower side of the price point and so does need a little help to soften the flavor. Add honey, if needed. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking continuously. That’s it. We’ve make this dressing quite a lot and find that as good as it is freshly made, it tastes even better the next day after the tarragon has a better chance to infuse the dressing with its flavor. It works great as a dressing, tossed with boiled/baked new spring potatoes, grilled veggies and so many more.
But since this is a sandwich blog after all, the sandwich incarnation can be found here in this “Pepper Ham Sandwich With Tarragon Salad Dressing, Cheese, Roasted Garlic And Smoked Paprika.“
It’s easy to buy hummus in a store, but it’s almost as easy to make it, and much more fun. This is a call to action; stop buying hummus!
All it takes to make are chickpeas, lemon juice, olive oil, tahini and garlic. Plus, add sun-dried tomatoes and you have sun dried tomato hummus. We use fresh cilantro or parsley as a topping, with a few roasted pine nuts, and you got yourself a really affordable and amazing appetizer dip. Naturally, we will be using some of this on our upcoming sandwiches :-).
This being winter, we thought we would provide a recipe for a summer garden favorite. And no, we do not find anything incongruous about this. What better time to start dreaming about the goodies of summer than now when the cold seems interminable. Okay, so as people lucky enough to live in San Diego which is as close to weather perfection as it ever gets in the US, we do not really experience winter – at least not of the snowmageddon variety. Anyway, one of the veggies that will reward you with copious production is the zucchini. Two plants can produce enough for a family of four for the growing season. With our limited space, we’ve regretfully stayed away from it. Our rationale – we have a well stocked market within 2 minutes walk of our house and it’s pretty hard to give up tomato space. So since we love zucchini but don’t always have it growing in the garden, we are so happy to be able to purchase was needed.
This little side dish is so simple, tasty and healthy. It is just bursting with flavor that we almost want to do a little dance as we eat it. Yes, it is that good.
